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He wrote a song about his mom's cancer. That's when famous musicians sent him their version.

There are some things life doesn't prepare you for.

Like sitting your 9- and 10-year-old kids down on the living room couch to tell them that your cancer came back.

Christi Nelson had already been through the wringer— chemo, hospitalization, a mastectomy — when her oncologist delivered the news. Less than six months after being declared breast-cancer-free, the cancer was back. A second round of chemo was the only shot for the 42-year-old.

So Christi and her husband, Mike, called a family meeting with their sons, Eddie and Archer, to break the bad news. That's when Archer decided he had something to say about the situation.

Eddie, Christi, Mike, and Archer on Mother's Day 2014, just after mastectomy surgery. Photo by Christi Nelson. Courtesy of the family.

"I remember Archer got real quiet," Mike said in a phone interview.

"Then he goes, 'I think cancer is stupid. You know why? Because Mom kicked its butt once, and it came back to get beat up again.'"

Mike says his son's positive attitude helped keep him from getting too dark. "You don't want to see that look of worry in your kid's eye. No kid should have to worry about things like that," he says.

Archer and Eddie. Photo courtesy of the family.

Archer wasn't done surprising his parents:

At the time, Mike, a longtime radio DJ in the Bay Area, had been teaching Archer how to burn CDs— "because every cool kid needs to learn '90s technology," he says jokingly. But when he walked into his son's room one day, Archer suddenly turned bashful.

"I think the CD player's broken," he said.

Mike looked inside and pulled out a piece of crumpled-up paper, cut into the shape of a CD. Scrawled on the paper in little-boy handwriting were the words "Boob Spelled Backwards Is Boob."

Archer with his dad. Photo courtesy of the family.

"I made up a song for Mom," Archer said, explaining that he couldn't figure out how to get the song out of his imagination and into the world. So he put his paper "CD" in the stereo, hoping it would play the music he had in his head.

Archer's song combined some surprisingly poetic imagery with nuggets of kid wisdom like, "Never forget the good things in life / Like candy, life, eating, having fun."

Mike was touched. He told the story to some colleagues at KFOG, the San Francisco radio station where he works. That's when his producer recruited the band Spearhead's Michael Franti to set Archer's lyrics to music. Then, they started asking every musician that came through the KFOG studios to contribute something to the song.

"The Grateful Dead heard about it and said, 'We want to be a part of it.' ... They could be doing a million things with their time, and they took the time to do this. I was speechless."

"The idea was to make it like a 'We Are the World' for breast cancer," Mike says.

The couple was stunned by the response from artists.

Christi Nelson just before having her chemotherapy port installed on Oct. 11, 2013. Photo by Kimberly Medina. Courtesy of the family.

"Vance Joy was on tour with Taylor Swift and came to the station and spent an hour working on the song," says Mike. "The Grateful Dead heard about it and said, 'We want to be a part of it.' This was right before they did their 50th anniversary tours; they could be doing a million things with their time, and they took the time to do this. I was speechless."

Within eight months, they had close to a hundred bits of audio and video of dozens of artists performing parts of Archer's song — everyone from Hozier and Noel Gallagher to Steve Earle and Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine.

Milky Chance even sang a few lines into an iPhone backstage at a concert, and Imagine Dragons and Sarah Silverman posed for photos holding a sign with the campaign's hashtag, #BoobProject:

They edited together the footage, creating a star-studdedmusic video and single, and the proceeds benefit breast cancer research.

"It's so exciting to see it grow from innocent, tender beginnings," Mike says of the song."It's just a kid trying to make sense of something that even most adults find pretty hard to comprehend," he adds.

"Why is this disease affecting so many women? Why is this shattering so many lives?"

Through sales of the song and donations collected through BoobProject.Org, Mike and Christi hope to raise $100,000 or more for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Since the song came to life, Christi says she's seen a change in her son.Archer wasn't always the most outwardly expressive kid. "His compassion has grown," she says. "He's heeding his emotional side and he's learning that it's OK to do that."

The fam. Courtesy of the fam.

Both parents say they cry every time they hear the song. "It's made me hyper-aware of the relationship I have with my kid, and that I don't want to let him go," Christi says. "There are feelings of mortality, like I have to cherish this moment. I just love him so much."

Fortunately for the Nelsons, the second round of chemo treatment appears, so far, to have worked.

At Christi's recent three-month scan, no tumors were detected.

"I remember when she called me, I was grocery shopping," says Mike. "I walked around Safeway crying, pushing a shopping cart full of vegetables. I felt so happy."

Mike and Christi on a couple's getaway to the San Mateo Coast after Christi was first declared cancer-free, July 20, 2014. Photo by Mike Nelson. Courtesy of the family.

Mike is quick to note that for every story like Christi's, there are thousands of others with unhappy endings — a fact he hopes will change with continued research on the disease.

"When Christi turned 40, she went in for her first mammogram, but if she had put that off for a year or two, she wouldn't be here right now," he says, adding that he hopes the song will inspire people to put their health first. "Feel your boobs, have a doctor check it out, make sure you're OK."

On an old episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in July 1992, Oprah put her audience through a social experiment that puts racism in a new light. Despite being nearly two decades old, it's as relevant today as ever.

She split the audience members into two groups based on their eye color. Those with brown eyes were given preferential treatment by getting to cut the line and given refreshments while they waited to be seated. Those with blue eyes were made to put on a green collar and wait in a crowd for two hours.

Staff were instructed to be extra polite to brown-eyed people and to discriminate against blue-eyed people. Her guest for that day's show was diversity expert Jane Elliott, who helped set up the experiment and played along, explaining that brown-eyed people were smarter than blue-eyed people.

Cadbury has removed the words from its Dairy Milk chocolate bars in the U.K. to draw attention to a serious issue, senior loneliness.

On September 4, Cadbury released the limited-edition candy bars in supermarkets and for every one sold, the candy giant will donate 30p (37 cents) to Age UK, an organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for the elderly.

Cadbury was prompted to help the organization after it was revealed that 225,000 elderly people in the UK often go an entire week without speaking to another person.

Young people today are facing what seems to be greater exposure to complex issues like mental health, bullying, and youth violence. As a result, teachers are required to be well-versed in far more than school curriculum to ensure students are prepared to face the world inside and outside of the classroom. Acting as more than teachers, but also mentors, counselors, and cheerleaders, they must be equipped with practical and relevant resources to help their students navigate some of the more complicated social issues – though access to such tools isn't always guaranteed.

Take Dr. Jackie Sanderlin, for example, who's worked in the education system for over 25 years, and as a teacher for seven. Entering the profession, she didn't anticipate how much influence a student's home life could affect her classroom, including "students who lived in foster homes" and "lacked parental support."

Dr. Jackie Sanderlin, who's worked in the education system for over 25 years.

Valerie Anglemyer, a middle school teacher with more than 13 years of experience, says it can be difficult to create engaging course work that's applicable to the challenges students face. "I think that sometimes, teachers don't know where to begin. Teachers are always looking for ways to make learning in their classrooms more relevant."

So what resources do teachers turn to in an increasingly fractured world? "Joining a professional learning network that supports and challenges thinking is one of the most impactful things that a teacher can do to support their own learning," Anglemyer says.

Valerie Anglemyer, a middle school teacher with more than 13 years of experience.

A new program for teachers that offers this network along with other resources is the WE Teachers Program, an initiative developed by Walgreens in partnership with ME to WE and Mental Health America. WE Teachers provides tools and resources, at no cost to teachers, looking for guidance around the social issues related to poverty, youth violence, mental health, bullying, and diversity and inclusion. Through online modules and trainings as well as a digital community, these resources help them address the critical issues their students face.

Jessica Mauritzen, a high school Spanish teacher, credits a network of support for providing her with new opportunities to enrich the learning experience for her students. "This past year was a year of awakening for me and through support… I realized that I was able to teach in a way that built up our community, our school, and our students, and supported them to become young leaders," she says.

With the new WE Teachers program, teachers can learn to identify the tough issues affecting their students, secure the tools needed to address them in a supportive manner, and help students become more socially-conscious, compassionate, and engaged citizens.

It's a potentially life-saving experience for students, and in turn, "a great gift for teachers," says Dr. Sanderlin.

"I wish I had the WE Teachers program when I was a teacher because it provides the online training and resources teachers need to begin to grapple with these critical social issues that plague our students every day," she adds.

In addition to the WE Teachers curriculum, the program features a WE Teachers Award to honor educators who go above and beyond in their classrooms. At least 500 teachers will be recognized and each will receive a $500 Walgreens gift card, which is the average amount teachers spend out-of-pocket on supplies annually. Teachers can be nominated or apply themselves. To learn more about the awards and how to nominate an amazing teacher, or sign up for access to the teacher resources available through WE Teachers, visit walgreens.com/metowe.

One of the major differences between women and men is that women are often judged based on their looks rather than their character or abilities.

"Men as well as women tend to establish the worth of individual women primarily by the way their body looks, research shows. We do not do this when we evaluate men," Naomi Ellemers Ph.D. wrote in Psychology Today.

Dr. Ellers believes that this tendency to judge a woman solely on her looks causes them to be seen as an object rather than a person.